Samuel Johnson Quotes

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

Many of our miseries are merely comparative: we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by the absence of some fictitious good; of something which is not required by any real want of nature, which has not in itself any power of gratification, and which neither reason nor fancy would have prompted us to wish, did we not see it in the possession of others.

He who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.

Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.

Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can; and conquered they must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be attained: but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom.

Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.

The uncertainty of death is, in effect, the great support of the whole system of life.

Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal.

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

It is very common for us to desire most what we are least qualified to obtain.

Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.

As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.

We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.

Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

So willing is every man to flatter himself, that the difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality and pleases his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in the cause of virtue.

We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.

When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared, and the best obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon another.

Sleep is a state in which a great part of every life is passed. No animal has yet been discovered, whose existence is not varied with intervals of insensibility; and some late philosophers have extended the empire of sleep over the vegetable world.

When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.

Parents are by no means exempt from the intoxication of dominion.

An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.

The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.

The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.

Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive .

Unconstraint is the grace of conversation.

No man hates him at whom he can laugh.

Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

No man can perform so little as not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitude that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavoured to be useful.

Health is certainly more valuable than money; because it is by health that money is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense, or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly, but let us not run from one enemy to another, nor take shelter in the arms of sickness.

We often need reminding even if we do not often need educating.

To be free it is not enough to beat the system, one must beat the system every day

It requires but little acquaintance with the heart to know that woman's first wish is to be handsome; and that, consequently, the readiest method of obtaining her kindness is to praise her beauty.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man.

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their riches will not think their condition such as that he should hazard his quiet, and much less his virtue, to obtain it, for all that great wealth generally gives above a moderate fortune is more room for the freaks of caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession of flatteries, and a larger circle of voluptuousness.

It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant to destroy his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing his proposition to an indefensible extent.

The synonyme of usury is ruin.

Every man is of importance to himself, and, therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the world already acquainted with his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish injuries or misfortunes which had never been known unless related by himself, and at which those that hear them will only laugh, for no man sympathises with the sorrows of vanity.